


Sex + Sentimentality

by Alvitr



Series: Sex + Sentimentality [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Horny horny Loki, Loki in Doc Martens, M/M, Mortal!Loki, Plot? What Plot?!, Tony is amused, Very light on the background details
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-05 10:11:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alvitr/pseuds/Alvitr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It turns out that mortals have much higher sex drives than gods; a fact that Loki is distressed to discover when he is made mortal by Odin. Luckily, Tony Stark is there to help him with this very pressing problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I intentionally have left the plotty background of this story vague. Basically it is your standard "Loki is turned mortal, has to live with the Avengers while on parole on Midgard" story. Loki has made the best of it. Everybody is used to him by now. So we can just cut through all of that slow development and get ... straight to the fun. (Though there will be character development in subsequent chapters, don't fear.)

Tony was deep in the zone, zipping through monitors and windows with one hand, sketching on a tablet with the other, AC/DC thumping in his headphones, when J.A.R.V.I.S. abruptly cut in: “Sir, Mr. Loki is here to see you.”

He closed his work rapidly, pulled his headphones off, and spun around, his eyes narrowed. Loki was standing at the elevator entrance to his lab, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed. He was dressed as he often was these days, what he had come to think of as Loki’s uniform: dark jeans, an untucked white button down shirt, Doc Martens. It still always took Tony by surprise. Why a white shirt? Then again, most likely someone else had bought them, as Loki wasn’t allowed outside of the Tower -- though the Docs seemed a very Loki-like touch to him.

“How did you get in here?” he asked.

Loki shrugged. “I hacked J.A.R.V.I.S.”

Tony sighed. “Now that’s not very nice, Blitzen. When did you learn how to do that?”

“Oh,” the god said, striding into the room and stretching his arms, “I have a lot of time on my hands now. And it’s not … what do you mortals say? _Rocket science?_ Is it?”

Tony shook his head, making a note to reprogram his security protocols right away. He turned back to his desk and picked up his tablet. “In case you had forgotten, you’re mortal too now.”

“And that’s precisely why I’m here, Stark.” Suddenly Loki was in front of him, sitting on his desk. Sitting on his desk! Who did he think he was? _The Norse god of mischief?!_ “There are certain … aspects of mortality that I find I need assistance with.”

Tony stood up, put a hand on each of Loki’s arms, and guided him off and away from the desk. “Well, maybe you should see the good Dr. Banner about that. I don’t think I can help.”

Loki laughed. “Oh, I don’t think so. I think you’re just the right person to help.”

Tony sighed, closed his eyes, and pressed his fingers to his forehead. Having spent several months with Loki in residence at Stark Tower, he knew the guy wouldn’t leave him alone until he’d gotten what he wanted. “All right. Speak.”

Suddenly, and very unexpectedly, Loki was pressed very close to him. When Tony opened his eyes, Loki’s face was only a few inches from his own; he was smirking, one eyebrow raised. “Stark, I need you to have sexual relations with me.”

Tony pushed him away. “Are you out of your fucking mind? Wait, never mind. You’re Loki, of course you are. But still?!”

Loki scowled, and actually _stomped_ his foot. “Stark! Service me, immediately!”

Tony slapped himself in the face, just in case he was dreaming. “What?!”

Loki began pacing. “This is insufferable! This body is … faulty!” He spun around to face Tony again. “Is this what it is like for all humans? No wonder your society is so ill-advanced! You have the instincts of craven animals.”

Tony began to laugh, helplessly, and fell back into his chair. “Let me get this straight,” he said through tears of mirth. “You’re horny … which is just fun to say, by the way, considering … and you want me to scratch you until the itch goes away.”

“I’m desperate!” Loki shouted, hands raised to the heavens, as though he were appealing to Heimdall to open the Bifrost and take him away from all this. “I can think of nothing else! It’s ruining my life!”

“Don’t gods get randy?”

Loki sighed. “Not particularly.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“We are advanced beings,” Loki said peevishly. “We are not ruled so much by our … baser passions.” 

“Sounds boring,” Tony said reflectively. “But I guess it makes sense. I mean, it helps with population control, doesn’t it? Important, considering you guys live thousands of years, and Asgard’s not too big, right?” He hummed. “Come to think of it, I guess that explains why Odin and Frigga only have you and Thor, even though they’re freaking ancient and have had thousands of years to get their freak on.”

Loki’s face was a mixture of extreme distaste -- of the _please don’t talk about my parents having sex_ variety -- and familiar resentment. “You mean they only have Thor,” he corrected, “but yes, that is an accurate estimation of the situation.” 

"Hey, what about Thor? Wouldn't he have had the same reaction back when he first got thrown to Earth?"

Looking irritated, Loki shrugged. "Thor has always been ridiculously sentimental. One might assume he translated his ... urges ... into his romantic attachment for Dr. Foster." He blinked and cleared his throat, and his face smoothed back into its former semi-seductive expression. “So, what say you, Stark? Are you willing?”

“No,” Tony said.

Loki sputtered. “Why? Am I not attractive?” He gestured up and down his body, like Vanna White revealing a phrase on _Wheel of Fortune._

“That’s besides the point,” Tony began, and Loki looked briefly triumphant. “The point is that you’re crazy.”

“And?”

“You’re a murderer.”

“So?”

“What do you mean, _so_?! Those are important objections!”

“I don’t see how that would interfere with my ability to provide you with adequate satisfaction during copulation.”

Tony groaned and covered his face with his hands. _That said…_ well, since he and Pepper had amicably split up several months ago, he hadn’t actually done the dirty in ages. Highly unusual for him, but he hadn’t really been in the mood for all the effort that went into picking up a partner. Plus that had more or less coincided with Loki’s arrival post-sentencing on Midgard, and he had been consumed with all the effort that went into being an insane god’s parole officer as well as his ordinary work. 

So … why not?

Really?

Well, he could think of a million reasons why not, but they didn’t seem so important at the moment.

He opened his eyes. Loki was still standing in front of him, expectantly, his hands thrust into his jean pockets. He was biting his lip. Tony was abruptly aroused. If Loki had been capable of doing magic anymore, he might have thought he’d had a spell cast on him. A spell invoked by sexy lip-biting.

Something occurred to him. “Wait, why me?”

Loki arched an eyebrow. “Who else would I approach? The beast? The deadly assassin? The man whose mind I manipulated? The wholesome captain?” Loki paused, thoughtfully. “Although, he wouldn’t be unsuitable. But it would require a lot of effort.” He waved his hand indifferently. “You, on the other hand ...” He smirked.

“So what you’re saying is I’m the easiest lay?” _Great. Now I’m being called a man whore by a guy who wears skintight leather when he tries to conquer the earth._

Loki only smiled.

 _I’m going to regret this._ “Oh … well, okay, I guess.”

Loki blinked. “Truthfully?” 

Tony spread his arms out. “Ravish me.”

Despite the invitation he was nevertheless startled when there was abruptly a lapful of squirming Loki on him. The force of the added weight made the chair roll back into the desk. Tony blinked, his hands flailing a bit, unsure of what to do; none of his previous, admittedly storied experiences had prepared him to deal with a barrage of kisses from a sexually frustrated, formerly murderous ex-god. Loki however seemed to have no reservations. 

"I promise to make this worth your while, Stark," Loki said breathlessly, then simultaneously licked a long stripe up Tony's neck, heedless of his several days' worth of stubble, and ground his pelvis against Tony's growing hardness. He was fairly certain he could feel Loki smiling against his face. Picturing that manic grin, Tony felt slightly light-headed, with fear or anticipation he couldn't tell.

"Hey," he tried to say,"hey - why don't we - uh - mmm - this isn't really the best pla-aaah..."

Loki seemed to not hear his protests, too deeply involved in the task at hand. This task was pressing open mouthed kisses, varying from delightfully vicious to surprisingly tender, all over Tony's neck, while vigorously humping him.

"Shut up, Stark," he gasped, and covered Tony's mouth with his own.

Tony lost his grip on time for a bit after that, what with all the making out and frottage going on, and Loki’s hands were everywhere at once, caressing him restlessly. Still, he was fairly certain not too much time had passed when Loki’s muffled groans began took on a decidedly more urgent tone and his body began to shudder violently against Tony’s. He pulled Loki back just in time to get a good look at his pretty dumb (but somehow, still sexy!) orgasm face -- mouth in a perfect “o”, eyes rolled back, cheeks flushed, the whole nine yards. Tony laughed and rested his hand on the shrinking, rather damp bulge in Loki’s jeans. 

“Well, that took less time than I expected.”

“Shut up, Stark,” Loki repeated, panting, and leaned his head against Tony’s shoulder wearily. “ _Fuck._ ”

“So I guess you’ll be on your way then.” Was that disappointment Tony was feeling? Well, it was true he hadn’t got his rocks off, but that was nothing a hot shower and his right hand couldn’t fix.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Loki slithered off his lap and stood before him, attempting to look composed, which was hilarious. “I’ll recover shortly. I’m not done with you yet.” He grabbed Tony by the belt buckle and pulled him to his feet. “I did say I would make this worth your while, did I not?”

 _Well, you heard the man_ , Tony told the little voice in his head who kept telling him what a terrible idea this was; he followed Loki to the elevator and punched the number for his private floor.

*

Some hours later, a drowsing Loki face down on the bed next to him, Tony decided he should definitely ignore that little voice more often. He reached out and ran one hand down the smooth, muscled plane of Loki’s bare back. Loki sighed.

“Was that satisfactory, your highness?” Tony asked softly, but with a smirk.

Loki stretched, and rolled onto his side so that he could look up at him. His lips twisted into a smile. “It was … adequate.”

Tony gave a bark of a laugh, shook his head, and settled deeper into the bed. Loki propped himself up onto his elbows. He looked … thoughtful. Tony felt something akin to nervousness at the prospect of Loki being thoughtful.

“What’s going through that head of yours? Mischief?”

“I have expended even my capacity for mischief today, I think.” Loki rested his chin on one hand. “It occurred to me … this urgency … it’s because you all have such little time, isn’t it? You live such short lives, and you’re fighting so fiercely to fit it all in …”

“Wow,” Tony said. “Thanks. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such suave and romantic pillow talk bef -- Christ, are you all right?”

Loki’s face had taken on a look of shocked horror. He grabbed Tony’s arm tightly. “Stark! I hadn’t even realized! I’m -- I’m dying!”

“Excuse me?”

Loki sat up, his eyes wide. “This body is dying! It likely has only a four or five decades left to it. What am I to do? What if Odin doesn’t reverse his decree?” He gasped. “Stark, I’ll get _old_. What are you laughing at?! There is nothing humorous about this!”

Tony wiped a tear from his eyes. “Calm down there, kiddo. You’ll be fine.” He sat up and put an arm around Loki’s shoulders; rather to his surprise, Loki sort of slouched into it. “Welcome to Club Mortality.”

Loki groaned. 

There was an awkward pause, and then Tony’s comforting arm drifted a little lower. “So … since you have so little time left … seeing as you’re dying and all … want to fill up the hours a bit more with me?”

Loki looked up at him sharply. Then his frown softened into a leer. “Well,” he said, “I suppose I should take advantage of the time that’s been given to me.”

Tony could certainly agree with that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony gets some boo-boos, Loki reads classic literature, and then boozy hot chocolate and sex happens.
> 
> Who let fluff in here???

“Sir, Mr. Stark has returned.”

Tony paused at the entrance of his room, quirking an eyebrow at J.A.R.V.I.S.’ words. Sure enough though, Loki was there, stretched out on Tony’s bed, wearing black sweat pants and Tony’s Ramones t-shirt. He was reading a very thick paperback book.

“When did you get back?” Loki asked, twisting his head over his shoulder to look at him. He gave a low whistle. “I take it that it didn’t go terribly well?” He sat up fully, closing the book, holding his place with one finger.

Tony shook his head. He was utterly thrashed. Mostly all superficial wounds, but after an hour and a half in triage, the adrenaline had fled and exhaustion had set in. “No, it didn’t. But thanks for waiting up for me, sweetheart,” he added. Loki answered his grin with an arched eyebrow.

This sort of banter had sprung up naturally between them over the last month or so -- the month since he and Loki had begun their little, er, arrangement. This was Tony’s finest art -- dancing on the knife edge of rudeness, familiarity, and teasing -- but often it wasn’t reciprocated in his lovers. Pepper had gotten it. They’d done that waltz admirably, for a long time, until it stopped working.

Loki got it too.

Tony started stripping off his clothes, wincing as he jostled the stitches along his torso, where part of his suit had caved in and cut him through his under armor. When he managed to pull the shirt completely over his head, Loki was sitting on the very edge of the bed, as though undecided as to whether he should stand or not. He had a weird expression on his face, mouth tight as though he’d eaten something sour. Tony imagined he was thinking nasty thoughts about pathetic vulnerable mortal bodies and, naturally, his own impending demise.

He smiled, leaned over carefully, and kissed the top of Loki’s head. Loki looked startled. “Sorry to disrupt any plans you had,” he said, “but I’m dead on my feet. After I take a shower I think I’m going to be pretty much useless.”

“Oh,” Loki said, and cleared his throat. “That’s fine.” He blinked a few times, then wrinkled his nose. “You smell repulsive,” he said, waving his hand vaguely. “Go clean yourself.”

Tony laughed and disappeared into the bathroom.

*

Standing under the hot spray of the shower, trying to wash blood out of his hair with limited arm movements, he thought of what he and Loki had done in the shower this morning. And on top of the sink. And against the bedroom window. Okay, that had been the night before -- maybe -- somewhere on the line between the two. He yawned.

It had been a fascinating few weeks, to be sure. Loki hadn’t been joking about the insane libido; Tony wondered if, in becoming mortal, Loki had somehow received, in compressed form, all the crazy sexual urges he’d missed out on from adolescence onwards. 

Not that Tony was complaining. He intended to take advantage of the situation … for as long as it lasted anyway.

When he stumbled out of the bathroom, towel wrapped loosely around his waist, Loki was gone. He figured he must have gone back to his level once he realized no sex was forthcoming. He’d left his book behind, though; it was face down on the bed, open at his place. Tony flopped down next to it on the bed. _Middlemarch_ by George Eliot. He shook his head. He wondered who was in charge of getting Loki reading materials. 

He reached towards the book -- Loki was almost halfway finished, he saw. Before he could touch it, the bedroom door opened, and Loki was standing there, holding two mugs, and, tucked under one arm, a bottle of whiskey.

“Hey,” he said, suddenly, and was about to say, “I thought you went back to your room” when some blessed thought checker in his head vetted the comment and considered that Loki might take that as an invitation to do just that. And, he realized, he didn’t want that. So instead he just said, somewhat lamely, “How’s your book?”

Loki had put the mugs down on the nightstand and was pouring a generous amount of the whiskey in them. He looked up. “Oh,” he said, and looked thoughtful for a moment. “Dorothea is an utter moron.” He handed Tony one of the mugs.

“Poor Dorothea,” Tony muttered, and took his drink. “Woah! Hot chocolate.” He laughed knowingly. One thing Loki seemed to like about mortal life almost as much as sex was chocolate. “Thanks … babe.” 

Loki gave him a stern look, but said nothing at the endearment; merely picked up _Middlemarch_ , and went over to “his” side of the bed with his own cocoa. 

Tony watched him for a minute. Well. 

He took a sip. Damn, Loki made good hot chocolate. “You know,” he said, “This is almost as good as L. A. Burdick’s. That’s in Harvard Square. I used to go there all the time when I was at MIT. Someday I’ll…” _Someday I’ll take you there_ , he had been about to say thoughtlessly, but he couldn’t take Loki there.

He finished his drink, turned off his light, and got into bed.

After a moment, Loki asked softly, without looking up from his book, “Is my light bothering you?”

Tony wondered when it had become Loki’s light. He was too sleepy to care. “No,” he murmured. “Almos’ slee...” And he was. 

*

He woke up some time in the middle of the night, jerked awake by a dream that he already couldn’t remember. The light on Loki’s side was still on but he was asleep, on top of the covers, book open on his chest. He was almost to the end now. Loki read incredibly fast, his eyes tracking down the page so quickly Tony couldn’t understand how he could comprehend the text at all; all the time though Loki complained that since becoming mortal he’d been forced to read incredibly slowly, and that his sluggish, human brain couldn’t even read two pages at the same time.

Tony picked up the book from Loki’s chest. Loki made a little noise in his sleep, his fingers curling, and then rolled over onto his side, facing away. Tony smiled and looked at the page Loki had stopped on. It took a moment for his blurry sleep-filled eyes to focus on the words.

_“Oh, how cruel!” said Dorothea, clasping her hands. “And would you not like to be the one person who believed in that man’s innocence, if the rest of the world belied him? Besides, there is a man’s character beforehand to speak for him.”_

_“But, my dear Mrs. Casaubon,” said Mr. Farebrother, smiling gently at her ardor, “character is not cut in marble — it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.”_

_“Then it may be rescued and healed,” said Dorothea._

Tony shook his head, and made a mental note to find some books for Loki that had actually been written in the past century. And maybe an e-reader, he thought, as he folded over the page to mark Loki’s spot, reached over the sleeping form beside him, and set the substantial book onto the nightstand. He turned out the light.

*

When he woke again, it was morning. Light was streaming in through the cracks between the blinds. Loki was awake, sitting up on the bed, his back to Tony. He stretched like a cat, his shirt ( _Tony’s_ shirt) riding up and exposing his hips and lower back. Tony sat up and slid his arms around his waist, one hand resting above Loki’s sternum, the other on the waistband of his pants.

“I feel better now,” he said by way of morning greeting.

“Oh, do you?” Loki said conversationally, as though this were of no interest to him at all. But he turned his head to look back at him, a sort of nonverbal invitation, which Tony RSVP’d by kissing him. Loki collapsed into him in the course of the kiss, his body molding and shaping into Tony’s, and then somehow they were laying down again, and Tony was kissing Loki up and down his body, and Loki was making appreciative humming noises. Then clothes were disappearing. Woosh! went the Ramones t-shirt, followed by the sweatpants. Having unwrapped his prize, Tony was prepared to give it a good lookover, when suddenly he was being pushed down and straddled by said prize, a naked and cunning ex-god.

“Now, now,” Loki said, “You’re still recovering. Your pathetic human body could relapse at any moment --” Tony protested vociferously -- “You really should just lay back and let someone else take care of you.” Loki punctuated that by a swivel-swivel-grind-grind of his hips, and Tony’s protests died on his lips, which was a good thing, as his lips were soon needed for more kissing, rather than complaints. Ander after a few minutes of Loki’s tender ministrations, Tony relented to being an invalid, and submitted himself to Loki’s care.

He was only a pitiful mortal, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is actually an L.A. Burdick's in NYC, but let's pretend it was destroyed when, you know, Loki invaded. If only he had known at the time that he was cutting off his access to the greatest hot chocolate in the world, maybe THEN he would have thought more about his actions!
> 
> Tony is an idiot. Middlemarch is one of the greatest novels ever written. It's very intimidating but it's one of those books that changes your brain forever. It's about mistakes, redemption, forgiveness, idealism, self-delusion, and learning how to be a non-shitty human being. Loki could learn a lot from it.
> 
> One chapter left.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki's a god again, Tony wonders if he's gotten dumped, everybody requires hugs and hot chocolate.

A long, strange sucking noise, and then a pop.

“Sir, Mr. Loki is here to see you.”

Tony froze, his hand hovering over the stopper of the whiskey bottle. His heart, behind the arc reactor, was thudding very loudly. 

He found it difficult to turn around, but he did.

Loki was standing in the center of the room. He looked very much the same as he had during the invasion: dressed in full armor, leather, black and green, his hair slicked back. But instead of the glow-stick of destiny, as Tony had called it that day, he was holding two paper cups.

Tony thought of a hundred things to say, but for once in his life couldn’t make himself say any of them.

*

It had been almost a month since Loki had unexpectedly regained his magic. No one had yet figured out why or how: Thor had been missing in action since before then, and Loki had teleported away within seconds. No one had seen him since then.

Tony could remember the day it happened with the utmost clarity. Nothing special had been happening. He’d been working, and talking, rambling about nothing in particular, and Loki had been reading and ignoring him. This was their habit. And Tony had looked up mid-sentence and Loki wasn’t paying attention to his book (Tony had gotten him the e-reader, as well some books that met his criteria for good modern literature: this one was _Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said_ ). He was just staring at Tony, an unreadable expression on his face. What had been passing through his mind at that moment? Tony didn’t know. He tried to remember what it was he had been saying at the time, or if he’d done anything special in the moments leading up to the … event … but it was fruitless. It was an error he couldn’t solve, a sum he couldn’t quantify. 

Then it had happened.

Something had changed. Loki’s face grew pale. The e-reader fell from his hands, and he stood. He was breathing heavily, and a sort of electricity went through him, his hair faintly prickling as though he’d received a static charge. Mutely, he had raised his hands, shaking, and stared at them in disbelief.

A shimmer passed through his body, starting with his fingertips, spreading rapidly up his arms and over his torso, his face, his legs. Loki changed. His form altered and melded, his “new” uniform changing to the old. Old Loki. It was only then that Tony, who had been speechless during this entire process, realized what had happened.

“Loki--” he’d started to say, and Loki’s eyes snapped up to his face, silencing him. Those green eyes widened, then narrowed.

And then, with a sickening pop, he’d disappeared.

*

_Why is love so good...? You love someone and they leave. They come home one day and you say "What's happening?" and they say, "I got a better offer someplace else," and there they go, out of your life forever, and after that until you're dead you're carrying around this huge hunk of love with no one to give it to. And if you do find someone to give it to, the same thing happens all over._

\- Philip K. Dick, _Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said_

*

And now he was back.

Standing right there, not ten feet from him. And he was handing Tony one of the paper cups he was holding.

That was when Tony found his voice. “You went to L. A. Burdick’s?”

Loki smirked. “Well, you wouldn’t cease talking about it.”

“Did you go in there looking like that?” Tony raised an eyebrow, pausing as he brought the cup to his mouth, and looked Loki up and down.

Loki snorted. “Of course not,” he said, and then, a few mind-meldy seconds later, he was wearing those jeans, that shirt, those boots -- and something in Tony’s palpitating heart began to calm.

Loki. Loki was back.

“Where did you go?” he blurted out. Then he corrected himself. “Why did you go?” _How stupid_ , he thought, _to ask that. Why wouldn’t he go? He was a prisoner here._ But a question once asked can’t be taken back.

Loki didn’t reply right away. He wandered over to a sofa, and sat down, like he belonged there, boots up on the coffee table, cup in hand. Like he’d never left. Tony thought he might disappear at any moment, without ever answering him.

Then he said: “I left to see if I wanted to return.” Another pause. Tony felt the impulse to fill the silence with words but his throat felt thick. “I visited some places I thought I’d rather be, and discovered I didn’t want to be there after all. Then …

“Then, I went to Asgard to ask Odin why I had my powers back.”

Tony was surprised. He’d assumed Asgard would be the last place Loki would go. In fact, he’d assumed Loki had regained his powers via some fluke, and that if caught, Odin would take them away again. “What did he say?” he asked.

Loki gave a strange laugh that sounded like an imitation of how a laugh was supposed to sound. “He said … my powers were returned to me the moment I realized I didn’t need them to get what I wanted.”

Tony said only, “Oh.” Then: “What do you want, then?”

Then Loki was there, right in front of him, having moved across the room in some unseeable fashion, and he was pushing Tony up against the bar, hot chocolate forgotten, and his face was terrifying.

“I thought it would go away,” he snarled, “and it _didn’t_ , it _stayed_. I’m still weak, weak like _you_ , and what I want is to know … why … what it means … what’s … going to happen …”

“Loki,” Tony said, completely confused, but then Loki was kissing him, hard, pressing him against the counter, painfully. 

It was such a disturbing mixture of the familiar and the alien. Loki’s smell and taste he knew so well and they had been so longed for, but the force behind the kiss was also strong and terrifying; it was a force not just inspired by passion, but, Tony thought, from anger.

Somehow, despite Loki’s strength, he managed pull his mouth away. “Loki -- stop --”

Something peculiar passed over Loki’s face. Tony thought he could recognize hints of the emotions he had once known how to pick out with surety, but he was no longer sure of anything anymore. Was it frustration? Confusion? Lust? Fear?

He caught his breath, and in a burst of eloquence spurred on by adrenaline, words came tumbling out. “You want to know why, and what this means, and what will happen -- but no one can answer those questions. No one knows.” He licked his licks. “Those are things you have to stick around to find out.”

Loki’s grip on his arms tightened painfully, then loosened. His face was flushed, with shame, maybe, and he muttered, “I’m not supposed to feel this way. This is beneath me.”

Tony laughed a little at that. “Idiot,” he said, and Loki looked at him, warningly, but before Tony could let himself feel fear, he cupped Loki’s face and drew him into a kiss. And Loki sort of molded to him, the way he used to, and Tony felt like he’d reached back to the past, and pulled it around them, like a blanket. 

They stayed pressed to each for a time, exploring each others’ mouths as though for the first time. It really did feel a bit like a first time for Tony. Loki was the same, but also brand new. He worried that the change was too great, but then Loki would do something he knew so well, like rub his cheek against Tony’s jaw, and he was sure -- he felt Loki, as he had known him, hadn’t disappeared. 

He had to ask.

“Is it different?” he said, his voice hoarse.

“What do you mean?” Loki asked. He looked startled, as though he had been woken from a trance.

“This,” Tony said, and pulled Loki into another deep kiss, gliding his hands down his back and then up again, under his shirt this time, then back down again, coming to rest on Loki’s ass, which he squeezed. When he pulled away Loki made a needy noise, and Tony wanted to take that noise and save it somewhere in his brain for future reference. “Now that you’re …” _different, a god, immortal, supernatural,_ “... not mortal.”

Loki looked annoyed, then thoughtful. “I suppose … it’s not quite so desperately urgent but at the same time …” he smiled, “somehow more … intense.”

“Interesting,” Tony said, and then moved his hands to Loki’s hips, pulled them to his own, and rolled them. 

Loki gasped. “Stark,” he said, his eyes large, pupils dilated. “ _Stark_...” He seemed unable to put what he wanted to say into words.

“... service me immediately?” Tony supplied helpfully.

“ _Yes_ ,” Loki growled, and then he grabbed Tony by the arms, and the world spun crazily around them; and suddenly they were in Tony’s bedroom, and Loki was pushing them onto the bed.

“Okay, that’s new,” Tony sputtered. 

“One of the many benefits of my magic being returned,” Loki said. Then his clothes disappeared into nothingness. “Here is another.”

“Oh,” Tony said. “Can you … do me, too?”

“Certainly, Stark,” Loki said primly, and then proceeded to vanished Tony’s clothes and, yea verily, do him.

*

Tony woke, yawned expansively, and stretched, punching Loki in the process.

“Cease pummeling me, mortal,” Loki said.

Tony wrapped his arms around Loki’s waist and kissed the spot on his arm where his fist had connected. “That’s not what you said last night.”

“Witty,” Loki said, and smacked Tony in the face with his e-reader.

“Ow. Where did you find that?”

“In my nightstand.”

_Loki’s_ nightstand. Oh, that was right; Tony had put it in the drawer after Loki had disappeared. He remembered sadly surveying the other detritus Loki had left behind there: a half-eaten bar of Godiva, a postcard of Van Gogh’s _The Ravine Les Peiroulets_ that Pepper had sent him last summer, and eye drops. He’d eaten the Godiva in a fit of despair. He hoped Loki wasn’t angry about that.

“Are you finished with _Flow My Tears_ yet?”

“Please. Hours ago. I’ve read four books this morning.”

Tony smiled.

There was silence for awhile, but for the rapid-fire sound of Loki endlessly clicking the button to proceed to the next page in his book. Tony began to drift off again. Before he could reach a total state of relaxation though, Loki sighed, snapped off the e-reader, flung it onto the bed and sat up, dislodging Tony from his resting spot.

“Wh-what is it?” he stuttered, still half-asleep.

Loki stood, the sheets slipping from his body, and stood nude, stretching. He strode over to the closet door, grabbed Tony’s (extremely soft, extremely expensive) bathrobe from the hook, and put it on. Tony frowned. Loki was always stealing his robe.

“You know, you could just magic yourself a robe. You don’t need to take mine.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Loki said, disinterestedly, and wandered into the kitchen.

“What am I supposed to wear?” Tony called after him, but Loki deigned not to answer. 

*

Thirty minutes later, Tony was drinking coffee at the kitchen table in his underpants and a t-shirt, watching Loki eat strawberries, his legs propped up on the chair next to him, which gave Tony a wonderful view of long, bare thighs from where they peeked out from his - from Tony’s - robe. 

“Can I have one?” he asked, motioning to the strawberries. Loki blinked at him, then picked out a strawberry from the carton and handed it towards him. Tony opened his mouth expectantly, and Loki scowled, and threw it at his face. 

“Now come on,” he said, rubbing strawberry juice from his forehead, “I know for a fact you have better aim than that.”

Loki said nothing, just busied himself plucking one leaf at a time from the next strawberry.

“So …” Tony asked hesitantly. “How … how long are you planning to stay, anyway?”

Loki froze, strawberry halfway into his mouth. He removed it and looked him square in the face. “How long do you expect me to stay?”

Tony snorted. “That’s a weird question.”

“How so?”

“You want to know how long I _expect_ , not how long I _want_?”

“They’re two different things,” Loki said in that peevish way of his.

“Well, to answer, I don’t expect anything. You’ll do what you want, regardless.”

Loki pressed his lips together tightly. “You misunderstand me completely.” He looked profoundly out of humor.

“Sorry,” Tony said, with sincerity. “You don’t make it very easy though, do you?” He reached out and took one of Loki’s hands. His fingertips were faintly stained pink. “That’s okay. I don’t like easy. The more complicated, the more fun.”

Loki huffed, but seemed somewhat mollified.

“Look,” Tony said, tracing the lines of Loki’s palm, and noting with interest that he possessed a simian crease, “stay as long as you want. Just … let me know if you’re going to go beforehand, okay? Don’t just … disappear. It’s a little distressing.”

Smirking, Loki asked, “Ah. Did you miss me, Stark?”

“Maybe a bit,” Tony admitted.

Loki’s eyes flashed and he looked very pleased. He pushed the strawberries aside and stood in his seat, leaning across the table, and kissed Tony firmly. “My thoughts may have strayed to you a few times during my wanderings, also,” he confessed when their lips had parted.

“It sounded a little more dire than that last night.” Tony couldn’t help but push things a little bit.

Loki’s smile turned lethal, but Tony thought he saw amusement in his eyes. “Do not test me, mortal,” he said.

“You love it.”

Suddenly he was being pulled up, one hand around his throat, in eerie mimicry of the day Loki had thrown him through the window. “Do I?” Loki asked him.

“... Yes?” Tony gasped hopefully. Loki frowned. 

Then he sighed, and let him go. “I have grown soft,” he said, sounding put out. “This is your fault.”

Rubbing his throat ruefully, he nodded towards Loki’s - no! Tony’s! - bathrobe, which had fallen open. “You don’t seem too soft to me.”

Loki looked down. “Oh,” he said, a little surprised. “Mortal desires seem to have also left some effect on me.”

“Want some help with that?” Tony asked slyly, and slipped a hand inside the robe, settling it on Loki’s hip, rubbing his thumb along the spot where his pelvic bone pushed up through the skin.

Loki hummed in response a little, but then frowned, and ran a finger along Tony’s neck. “Did I injure you?” he asked suddenly.

“Nah, I’m fine,” he said.

But Loki did not look very convinced. “I forget my own strength,” he murmured. “I have grown so used to having none.”

“Seriously, no harm done.”

Loki gave a humorless laugh. “On the contrary, I seem to do nothing but harm.”

“Hey,” Tony said, suddenly, and pushed his face to Loki’s, locking eyes with the god. “Stop it. I am fine. Don’t get all self-loathy with me. It doesn’t suit you very well.”

Loki smiled a little. “And what does suit me, Stark?”

_I do,_ Tony’s brain spoke up, a little hysterically, _and you suit me_. He ignored it. “Debauchery,” he said instead, a wicked grin spilling across his face. “You, completely exhausted, and all fucked out, and not able to think about anything but how good you feel.” He kissed Loki’s forehead, then his eyelids, his cheeks, and finally his mouth. “Now, it’ll take a little effort,” he said, a few minutes later, when they were both panting heavily, “but I think we can pull it off.”

“Well,” Loki replied, licking his lips, “if you insist.”

Tony insisted.

And for the time being, at least, Loki decided to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we leave these two confused lovebirds to their own devices. Perhaps we will check up on them later.
> 
> I feel like Tony would be a big Philip K. Dick fan. What else? Maybe William Gibson? I've never actually read Neuromancer, and I probably should.
> 
> Van Gogh's [The Ravine Les Peiroulets](http://www.wga.hu/html_m/g/gogh_van/11/3enviro1.html). It looks like a place Loki might visit. Maybe he will now that he can.
> 
> A simian crease (also known as single transverse palmar crease) is when the head and heart lines of your palm form a single line. It is sometimes indicative of Down's Syndrome, but also has traditionally associated with genius, artistic talent, and mental illnesses such as sociopathy. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


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